]]>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:57:16 +0000http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=29598#p29598http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=29590#p29590
Who knows? Assuming that it wasn't something you did (changed a setting, suspended a laptop and the battery went dead before you could resume (IDK if that would screw things up or not), that kind of thing) then it might have just been some kind of glitch at shutdown. If so, there's probably a logfile somewhere that shows what happened. Unfortunately, I have no clue as to which log, where it would be stored, or how to retrieve it.]]>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:12:39 +0000http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=29590#p29590http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=29589#p29589
Thanks again, MDM, for your input. Much appreciated . . .

However, I discovered that the problem on my system is perhaps "simpler" than either of us might've anticipated: The Window Manager simply is not being launched at startup; so putting in an autostart command to invoke it clears up the mess in a somewhat normal fashion- "Purely by chance."

Queer. Sure would like to know why the system decided to arbitrarily cease startup of WM @ boot. It's not like there's a bloatload of crapplets being launched during startup over here (I run a tight, clean ship)...

I am not very sure about this, exactly, as I'm still very new at the actual learning/knowing part (as opposed to simply using). But I checked that section of my settings to see if it should include xfwm4 - wondering if, perhaps, you had inadvertantly removed or unchecked it - and I do not have it.

I have done some light reading/skimming both here and at the Mint forum (my distro is Mint 14 Xfce and I have added the PPA to update it to Xfce 4.12), and have seen the suggestion to restart xfwm4 in a few threads that were dealing with issues such as yours. If I understand it correctly, Xfce has the capability to "save the user's session for next time." I'm not really clear on that, because it doesn't seem to save the state of running applications; if you have Firefox running when you shutdown, it will not run at boot. So I think that it's more having to do with the actual desktop environment (Xfce, itself), and some settings.

I think your problem lies with that. I don't know if it's the state of that setting (Session and Startup / General / (Logout Settings) Automatically save session on logout, or if it has to do with the "session" that is being saved - or, alternatively, that it isn't saving your session, but the "default session" is SNAFU.

That setting on my system, BtW, is unchecked. I believe that to be Mint 14 Xfce's default, but it may not be the default for all distros that use Xfce as the DE.

I'm sorry for being vague. If I see anything more specific, I'll try to remember to post it here. Wait...

Hmm... Okay, do NOT delete your sessions directory. And you shouldn't have to do what you did, either. According to this post, all you have to do in order to ensure that things are normal at reboot is to restart xfwm4 and then save your session on logout (presumably, by checking that setting I mentioned). After a reboot, you may be able to uncheck it again - as mine is unchecked and my window manager runs correctly - or you may not.

Your way seems to be working, I take it. That probably means that you'll be fine, but you never know.

Have you tried restarting xfwm4? I think you can press Alt-F2, type xfwm4, and press Enter to do so.

If that doesn't work - or if it does, but the problem returns after rebooting, try deleting ~/.cache/sessions (NOTE: This may or may not help, and I don't know if it can cause other issues, so try restarting the window manager first).

I'm encountering a bit of a "sticky wicket" with XFCE on my beloved installation of Xubuntu. So, I thought I'd post this missive over here for a turn ;o)

The problem is simple enough to describe: No window controls; and no content whatsoever shown in the Window Manager and Window Manager Tweaks UIs. I also now have a dark black "X" for a cursor as well.